


I'm the Great White Hope

by Mosca



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, Hillary wins, M/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:57:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: Favs is stuck in this time loop until he can get Hillary to win the 2016 general election.





	I'm the Great White Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LilyRosePotter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyRosePotter/gifts).



> This story takes place in the universe where Emily and Hanna don't really exist. There's some excessive drinking and mild internalized homophobia, and sex with a dog in the room.
> 
> Profuse thanks to my secret mystery betas!
> 
> The title is from "Mr. November" by The National.

0.

 

“If Hillary loses, blow job party at my place,” Favs said at 9 AM on November 8, 2016. He would come to regret it, and not primarily because it revealed a brutal strain of internalized homophobia that he needed to examine.

 

The election returns party at Tommy’s house started off festive, draining bottles of Cabernet so they could save the champagne for after the West Coast polls closed. At 7:00, they were still making MAGA puns. At 8:00, they rationalized that they hadn’t really expected Hillary to win Ohio, and Florida’s vote count would be reviewed. By 10:00, they were passing a bottle of champagne around the room, dead-eyed and silent, even Lovett unable to drum up a saving witticism.

 

“Rain check on the blow job party?” Tommy said as he spread blankets across the sofa. Favs was too drunk to drive home and too stunned to move forward.

 

1.

 

Favs’ alarm went off at 5:00, leaving him too groggy to wonder whether he’d booked an East Coast phone call and forgotten about it, or whether he’d just been overly optimistic about his ability to work out the morning after drinking until the prospect of a Trump presidency seemed survivable. Come to think of it, he should have been on Tommy’s couch, not in his own bed. He was also experiencing a distinct lack of hangover. Maybe he’d take Leo for a run.

 

He’d check the first post-apocalyptic think pieces of morning first. When he opened up the news app on his phone, though, all of the top stories read like the election was still two weeks away. When he looked closer, all of the articles marked “most recent” had date stamps of October 25. His phone also said it was October 25, even after he manually forced it to update. “Siri, what’s today’s date?”

 

“Today is October 25, 2016.” Siri sounded faintly exasperated, although that was probably just him projecting. “Would you like to hear this morning’s top stories?”

 

“Siri, who’s the President of the United States?”

 

“The President of the United States is Barack Obama.”

 

“Siri, who won the 2016 Presidential election?”

 

“The 2016 United States general election will take place on November 8, 2016. At that time, Americans will vote to elect the 45th President. Would you like to hear more information about the candidates?”

 

“Did I time travel somehow? Is this some kind of cosmic second chance to get Hillary elected?”

 

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand that question,” Siri said.

 

“Neither do I,” Favs said.

 

If it was October 25, then Favs did have a call at 6:00 this morning with NPR. He took Leo for a perfunctory walk, downed a cup of coffee, and verified that his headset was working. Every question and answer in the interview felt like deja vu, except that it was more than an eerie feeling: he’d given this interview before, and he’d provided the same answers, word for word.

 

“Last week, you said you were ‘very confident’ that Hillary Clinton will be our next President,” the host said. “Do you still feel that way now?”

 

Favs tried to reply with the resounding “yes” he’d delivered the first time around, but the bubbly, boozy taste of defeat lingered in his mouth. “To be honest, I’m losing confidence,” he said. “I think there are more and more variables in play as we hit the home stretch here. I can’t put my finger on a specific factor that’s giving me pause, but it seems like Democrats ought to be giving it everything we’ve got, and a lot of us are just kind of coasting at this point. I’m worried we’re complacent. And that includes everyday Americans, but it's not really their fault, because everything they hear from party leadership and the media is like, 'Don't worry; it's going to be fine.' I think we all need to take a moment and go, 'But what if it's not fine?'”

 

After the interview, there was a text from Tommy on his phone. “Complacent?!”

 

Favs typed out, _I’ve come back from the future to warn everyone that Hillary is going to lose,_ then deleted it and sent, “Yeah, just a hunch for now. Let’s mobilize some efforts and talk them up on the pod tomorrow.”

 

Favs spent the rest of his day making a list of everything that could go wrong with Hillary’s campaign. Could have gone wrong. Would go wrong. Had already and would always go wrong. He’d expected to hide his conspiracy theories away, but on the pod the next day, Tommy said, “Just for the sake of argument, let’s go through everything that could possibly prevent Hillary from winning.”

 

It was surprisingly hard for Tommy and Lovett to shoot down Favs’s concerns. The fabricated news articles on social media were a real problem, as were the hackers leaking emails from Democratic leadership. The memes about Hillary’s misuse of her private email server and her fragile health had stuck, and nobody was doing enough to discredit them. Hillary’s campaign had not planned the intensive final round of baby-hugging in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that could increase turnout. Speaking of increasing turnout, canvassing had waned since Hillary had secured the nomination, and there wasn’t enough targeted outreach toward young people, voters of color, and the cadre of Bernie bros who were threatening to just stay home. “Remember how excited people were about Obama?” Favs said. “I mean, that’s not to say people aren’t excited about Hillary, but there’s not that same momentum. And you can _create_ momentum. But it doesn’t just arise out of nowhere. You have to feed it.”

 

It was one thing to have a list of concerns and another to address them, now that he had twelve days to go until the election. Almost everyone thought he was out of his mind, or at least overreacting, but he didn’t have time to pull the evidence together to show that Facebook was galvanizing the right and apathy was overtaking the Midwest. He did inspire a squadron of listeners to form some grassroots phone-banking and door-knocking operations, and when he got potential voters on the line, it was clear that America’s great Passive Left needed a shot in the arm, not to mention directions and a ride to their polling place. People wanted a reason to care. They just didn’t believe they mattered until you showed them that they could.

 

But Hillary didn’t change her plans to make a last-minute Midwestern tour. Nobody did anything about hackers or Facebook ads or broken voting machines. Favs could be an impressive one-man show when he put his mind to it, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once.

 

On Election Night, he went to Tommy’s party knowing that he’d failed his do-over. The cracks were everywhere, and he’d left too many of them open. Nothing was going to change.

 

He watched the results ticker at the bottom of the TV screen for a sign of hope. He felt like he was playing the world’s hardest game of “spot the difference,” in a noisy room full of drunk people. After countless revolutions of the results ticker, he caught it: the Virginia 10th. The first time around, the news outlets had called Virginia’s 10th House district early in the evening, but this time, it was too close to call, even after Trump’s victory had become a fait accompli. Pulling the blanket over himself as he rolled to face the back of Tommy’s couch, he lulled himself to sleep with a mantra of, “Virginia 10th, Virginia 10th.”

 

2.

 

This time, when he woke up in his own bed at an unreasonable hour, Favs was only surprised for a moment. He checked his phone: October 25, 2016. Unlimited retries. He liked those odds.

 

He had his mental list of talking points for the NPR interview. He rehearsed them while Leo did his business. Favs was certain that he sounded like a fucking crackpot. If he were a Republican, he would have gotten away with it, but the Left harbored old-fashioned standards of credibility and evidence. He reined it in, although he got in a few words about the relative lack of enthusiasm and wonder surrounding Hillary, and he wrapped it up with a more confident version of the “complacency” speech from last time.

 

The follow-up text from Tommy said, “Complacency … I think you’re on to something.”

 

The grassroots canvassing got off the ground by Thursday this time, with concerned citizens in matching t-shirts converging on the suburbs of the Midwest to convince America’s apathetic and overworked to exercise their civic duty. Hillary dropped a few talking points about her admiration for her supporters’ final push, and then she stepped off a plane in Grand Rapids, in a pantsuit so white it almost glowed in the dark. She was still walking in a haze of fake news, leaked documents, and voter suppression, but at least she was daring to walk. What Favs felt was neither hope nor self-satisfaction, but it was something north of despair.

 

Everyone else at Tommy’s Election Night Party was despondent by 10:00, but all Favs could see was seven more House pickups than he remembered from last time, one of them the mighty Virginia 10th. MSNBC had called Michigan for Hillary. He’d failed again, but he’d failed better.

 

3-9.

 

The weeks cycled in grim repetition. Each time, Favs had more to bring to that 6 AM interview, more of a head start on salvation. He also developed a giddy sense of inevitability. On the third try, he memorized lottery numbers, for the cheap thrill of winning when the next try rolled around. On the fifth try, he slipped his number to the cute yoga instructor at his gym; by the end of the afternoon, he regretted being the only one who’d remember it.

 

It took him the entirety of the sixth try to ponder whether it was unethical to cash in his blow job party wager. He did, halfheartedly, after Pennsylvania got called for Trump, and Tommy laughed it off. After everyone else left, though, Tommy said, “The blow jobs are a little much, but would you settle for a kiss?” It was warm, and awkward, and friendly, and Favs was glad to take the unrepeatable memory with him.

 

On the eighth try, they flipped Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. On the ninth, Favs followed a promising but wild research lead on the origins of some misleading Russian Facebook ads and got so caught up in the conspiracy that he forgot to monitor the grassroots initiatives; they couldn’t even snag the Virginia 10th. “You okay, buddy?” Tommy asked as he tucked a sheet into the sofa cushions.

 

“Yeah, just exhausted,” Favs said.

 

Tommy patted his arm. “No more consolation champagne for you.”

 

10.

 

Favs’ body reset after each loop, which he’d proven on the seventh repetition when he’d fallen off a ladder at a rally in Sheboygan and fractured his wrist, then found it healed on the first morning of loop number eight. His mind was starting to deteriorate, though, so he gave himself a vacation. He could fight for Hillary for another two weeks and lose what was left of his sanity, or he could blaze through two carefree weeks in Vegas knowing that all the damage to his bank account and liver would reset. It wasn’t like she was going to win this time anyway, even if he gave it all he had. He was tired, and he was at an impasse.

 

He shared all of his current knowledge in the NPR interview, because rehearsing it would help him remember it next time, and then he packed up the car and the dog.

 

Favs got too flippant in his replies to Tommy’s increasingly concerned texts. Before he could back out of his driveway, Tommy showed up at his house. “What the hell are you doing? We have an election to cover.”

 

“We can record the pod from Vegas,” Favs said. “The mobile studio is in my trunk.”

 

“You think I’m coming with you?” Tommy said. “Not that you’re going. Neither of us is going.”

 

Favs drew in a breath. His only recourse now was the truth, which was fine, because Tommy wasn’t going to remember this conversation anyway. “I’m caught in a time loop, like in that _X-Files_ episode with the leaky waterbed, except I’m never ever getting out of it because we all thought a Clinton presidency was a done deal but man, this is a hell of a lot harder than it looked when we were riding high on poll numbers. I’ve been working nonstop for five months, and now I am taking a fucking vacation, because I’m sure as hell not going to figure out the key to taking down Trump in my current mental state.”

 

Tommy’s stunned silence is what Favs expected, but his eventual words are not. “Me too.”

 

“You … too?”

 

“I’ve relived the past two weeks about ten times now,” Tommy said. “We get a little closer each time, except last time, I got a little too excited about the grassroots campaigning in Pennsylvania and didn’t get Ronan on board fast enough to research the Russian corruption angle.”

 

“Get in the car,” Favs said.

 

“Can we stop at my place so I can pack a bag?”

 

Favs cupped his dog’s furry face in his hands. “What do you think, Leo?”

 

Leo barked cheerfully.

 

“Leo’s cool with that, so I am, too,” Favs said.

 

While Favs drove, Tommy told him about his research into the actual real-life Russian conspiracy to undermine the election. It was no surprise that Tommy had gotten much deeper into the sinister forces than Favs had, just as Favs had been far more successful in influencing the Clinton campaign’s strategy and raising enthusiasm for coordinated Get Out The Vote efforts. Tommy had solid evidence that Trump and his sleazy children had been meeting with Russia for months about a hotel deal, more focused on making money off the publicity of his campaign than on what they’d do if they won. He’d also traced a network of hackers and fake news mills back to Putin through a trail of financial transactions and ISP ghosts. “This would be a cool spy movie if it weren’t real,” Favs said.

 

“I thought so at first,” Tommy said, “but everyone’s so incompetent and smarmy that it would just be depressing.”

 

By the time they reached Vegas, Favs and Tommy were both jumping out of their skin with excitement about combining their forces of good, but they kept their eyes on the prize: low-stakes poker, Cirque du Soleil, competitive buffet eating, and sitting in a hot tub with a bottle of Maker’s Mark and a good book. In the hot tub, it occurred to Favs that Tommy remembered their kiss. He must have been working as hard as Favs to avoid the subject.

 

Toward the end of the first week, they started comparing notes, and by the night before the election, their hotel room was full of Post-Its and handwritten memoranda, in addition to several days’ worth of forgotten room service flatware.

 

“You know what I could use?” Tommy said as they settled in for the devastation of the live election returns. “Two more weeks in a hotel room in Vegas to turn all this stuff into a coherent timeline and action plan.”

 

“Meet me in my driveway first thing in the morning on the 25th,” Favs said.

 

11.

 

They didn’t have nearly as much debriefing to do on the road to Vegas this time, so the conversation shifted from their grand plans for taking back America to the drudgery of living the same two weeks over and over. “I keep getting this parking ticket on the second Wednesday,” Tommy said. “Each time, I try to remind myself, but my mind is always on other things. Once, I nailed it. Moved the car just in time. And then I went right back to forgetting.”

 

“I’ve had one lunch where they put pickles on my burger every time,” Favs said. “ I’ve tried everything to get them to leave off those pickles. I ordered chili and a salad once, and they brought me _a side of pickles._ ”

 

“It’s fun to do that,” Tommy said. “To tweak the little stuff. It feels like you’re warping reality.”

 

Favs got a flash of sense memory: Tommy’s lips against his.

 

“What?” Tommy said. It had been a long pause.

 

“We’re going to have to deal with it sometime,” Favs said.

 

“Again, what?”

 

“The time when I got you to kiss me?” The words came out very fast and very high-pitched.

 

“Oh, is  _that_  how you remember it?”

 

“Is that … not what happened?” Favs said.

 

“I was curious,” Tommy said. “I wanted to see if you would do it. I wanted to know how it would feel. I assumed -”

 

“You assumed I’d never know.”

 

“Yeah.” Tommy rubbed his face with both hands.

 

“It was a good kiss,” Favs said. “We could do it again if you want.”

 

“Pull over,” Tommy said. “The car. Pull the car over.”

 

They made out on the side of the road long enough to confirm that they both wanted to do it again. Often.

 

Favs got hard from anticipation at the hotel check-in desk. He pulled Tommy into a kiss as soon as they shut the hotel room door behind them, as Leo bolted away with his leash still attached. Tommy threw off his clothes and sat on the bed, grinning, justifiably proud of his lean, toned body. It wasn’t that Favs had never thought about wanting to touch him. The thoughts had just never made it past the barrier of presumed straightness and the excuse of friendship.

 

He leaned down for a kiss. Tommy ran both hands under Favs’ shirt, up Favs’ chest, like it was a move he’d been planning for hours. For weeks, for countless iterations. Tommy unbuckled Favs’ belt and pulled his jeans and briefs down just far enough to get Favs’ cock out. Tommy went in hands first, then with his mouth, warm and unhurried. Favs braced himself on Tommy’s shoulders, trying to slow time. “Fuck yeah, that’s good,” Favs said as Tommy found a newer, better place to put his tongue. They’d fit together so well, all this time, and not known. He came with Tommy’s name in his mouth, where it had been all along.

 

Favs kicked his jeans the rest of the way off and pushed Tommy back onto the bed. They rolled around for a bit, kissing, before Tommy put Favs’ hand on his cock. Giving head was no great challenge, once Favs got going. Tommy made happy, inchoate noises in the back of his throat. He came sooner than Favs expected, like he hadn’t bothered to hold back.

 

They lay together on the bed with the midday desert sun baking them through the window. Leo nestled himself between Favs’ left leg and Tommy’s right. “What if the whole purpose of this loop thing was to get us together?” Tommy said. “What if it had nothing to do with politics?”

 

“I want to believe in a more just universe than that,” Favs said.

 

12.

 

Favs and Tommy set aside this iteration as a planned loss, so they could patch up some of the holes in their timeline and answer a few lingering questions about the Russian troll attacks. That was their official excuse, but the reality was, they were still too distracted by the many opportunities to climb all over each other’s dicks, and they needed to wash off the glow before they had any hope of productivity.

 

“So you and Tommy finally took the plunge,” Lovett said. “Good for you. You’re cute together.”

 

“How did you -”

 

“I have my sources,” Lovett said.

 

Favs rolled his eyes. “Tommy told you.”

 

“He needed advice.”

 

“On what?” Favs said.

 

Lovett walked away, whistling a tune.

 

13.

 

They shouldn’t have counted on the thirteenth loop to be the successful one. They underestimated the backlash from letting out all the Russia revelations in the last two weeks before an election driven by fear and paranoia, and the gruff moderates of Ohio and Pennsylvania had dug their heels in too deep. Despite the mistakes, they came close: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa went blue, and they beat their previous high score for House flips.

 

“We’ll get it right next time,” Tommy said confidently as they tucked themselves drunkenly into his bed.

 

“What if we don’t? What if the purpose of this time loop is so we can bang each other in our prime forever?” Favs said.

 

“Would that be so bad?” Tommy said with a kiss.

 

14.

 

Everything fell into place this time. It was all the more satisfying to know none of this was an accident. They’d choreographed every leak and sound bite, lined up their allies efficiently, and built workarounds for every pitfall. There were hiccups here and there, but everyone else was too busy campaigning their asses off to notice.

 

Iowa and Wisconsin went to Clinton early, with Michigan not far behind. Even Ohio got called blue before the West Coast polls finished closing. That was enough to put Hillary in the White House, but the evening turned up a few bonus victories: North Carolina on the strength of their outreach to black voters, and Arizona, which Favs hadn’t been paying attention to but must have done something right. The Democrats picked up 19 House seats, not enough to flip the majority, but enough to make it feel like a movement.

 

Favs and Tommy carried glasses of champagne to bed and shared a few celebratory kisses. “Here’s to the last time we’ll have to watch those election returns,” Favs said.

  
0.

 

Favs woke to the smell of coffee and a faceful of kisses from Leo. It took a few minutes of triumphant doggy cuddles before he had the wherewithal to take stock of his surroundings: Tommy’s bed, not his own. “Hey, Tommy!” he called out. “What day is it?”

 

Tommy must have been on his way back from the kitchen, because he put a cup of coffee into Favs’ hands before crowing, “November 9th, 2016.”

 

Favs nudged Leo out of the way to make room for him. “Don’t worry, I already took Leo out,” Tommy said. “I got up to pee and saw the date on my phone, and after that, it was like Christmas morning.”

 

“We won,” Favs said.

 

“We crushed them.” Tommy sat on the corner of the bed and gave Favs a good morning kiss on the forehead. “And I let you sleep, so we have to go record the pod in an hour.”

 

“I don’t know what I’m going to say,” Favs said. “I really don’t. I’ve been giving the same speeches over and over for months, and now everything I want to say is going to be a secret forever. Nobody realizes how hard this was, how much harder than we all thought it was going to be. And I want to be like, look what we can do when we act like our lives and our democracy are at stake. Imagine what we could do if we treated every election like it’s a crisis. Every piece of legislation, every City Council meeting. Every cynical, corporatist, hate-fueled idea that catches fire on the internet. Imagine what kind of world we could create.”

 

“Say that,” Tommy said. “Say that over and over until it sticks.”

 

“How many tries do you think that’s going to take?” Favs grumbled.

 

“I don’t know,” Tommy said. “But I want to find out.”


End file.
